I Don't Know Son, But I Miss Him Already
by Black Wolf Ranger
Summary: It was supposed to be a good day for the band. A festival just begging to have them perform a show, throwing money at their faces. But things are never quite as they seem. For the chipper and sometimes oblivious Ricky Fitness, he's going to learn this lesson the hard way and possibly discover things he never knew about his fellow teammates before. Action/Suspense/Humor Oh My!


I know, I know. You guys are probably thinking "What the heck is wrong with this person!? They just came back to fanfic and said they were gonna take it slow and finish at least one of their previous stories before writing anything new." Well I've learned that I rarely seem to follow my own advice when it comes to creative matters, even if it's for my own good!

Honestly, I've had this idea burning within me for about a month and I just needed to put it down on paper and because I thought _Hey, I have some people here who like my work, maybe a few people will read this. I pretty much only write romance or super hero stuff and this is kind of super heroish?_

I don't know, I honestly don't know if anyone will read this, but if you do I really really really really really appreciate it!

Much love - Black Wolf Ranger

SOMEWHERE!

At a Gravel Filled Parking Lot...

"Man, it's too early!" Crash McLarson complained as he trudged slowly out of the battletram and onto the grey, rocky parking lot. He stretched his arms as he saw two of his bandmates and fellow crime-fighters. Crash yawned loudly, causing his buddy, Eaglebones Falconhawk, to roll his dark brown eyes. "Ugh, this stinks!" Crash slammed the door of their black painted vehicle. Once the door was shut, he punched it, to let out a little more frustration. Both Eaglebones, and Jimmy the Robot, the other Aquabat standing out in the parking lot, were wide eyed and worried for a few moments but luckily, the bass playing super hero did not dent the battletram.

Even though the Aquabats' battle vehicle was built to withstand a lot of damage, Crash had a lot of strength and was very unpredictable with his power.

Eaglebones let out a sigh of relief before turning to his robot friend. "You know, he does have a point."

Jimmy cocked his head to the side, confused. "What do you mean Eaglebones? You're usually awake once the sun rises."

Eaglebones shook his head, causing some of his long, brown hair sticking out under his silver anti-negativity helmet to move about. "It's not that Jimmy, I'm not tired at all."

"Well I am." Crash interjected with a groan.

Eaglebones rolled his eyes again, "What I mean is that we're about to go out to sound check for this new music festival, and there are still people around setting up the stages." Eaglebones pointed out, causing the others to look beyond the parking lot, to where the actual festival was being held. "We have to be on our stage checking our equipment in fifteen minutes, and the staff hasn't even finished setting up the facility. Very unprofessional." Eaglebones said suspiciously, eyeing the staff members of the festival moving about. Eaglebones then cupped his own chin, thinking for a moment. "What was the name of this festival again?"

"The Shredding Skull Festival sponsored by Shred Center." Jimmy quickly informed. "This is its debut date. The Commander told me he got a call from somebody running the event and that they personally requested for us to be part of the line-up."

Now this made Eaglebones even more suspicious. "But if we were personally requested, then why are we getting the 10am slot and not prime time?"

"I'm not sure," Jimmy stated, "but we could sure use the paycheck."

"Yeah, we still need to build my rocket powered hot dog!" Crash exclaimed, feeling a little less grumpy as he imagined hot dogs with jet packs flying in the air.

"Whatever." Eaglebones said as he folded his long, skinny arms. "I guess we'll make due. We really do need the cash to fix some of our battle equipment." He paused for a moment, thinking of what they should use the money on. There were honestly many items Eaglebones could think of that he and the other Aquabats could use the money for and he was trying to narrow it all down to the necessities. "And I am running low on guitar strings."

"Hey, what about my rocket powered hot dog?" Crash reminded the guitarist of what he thought should be the main priority for the band's upcoming paycheck.

"I don't know Crash." Eaglebones stated, imagining fast flying hotdogs losing control and going all over the place.

"It will work! I know it! Come on, Eaglebones, I can see it all now. Just imagine you're hungry and-"

Before Crash could say another word of his oddly passionate speech about rocket powered hot dogs, Jimmy cleared his throat. "My friends, I hate to interrupt, but we don't have much time left to get to our sound check and we're still missing Ricky and The Commander."

"Isn't The Commander still on the battletram?" Eaglebones questioned.

Crash thought for a moment, "Oh yeah, I think he said he was going to the bathroom. Man, he's been in there a long time then if it's close to sound check." He answered, scratching the side of his helmet covered head.

"Better scan the battletram, Robot" Eaglebones suggested. Jimmy nodded before using his super vision to see if any of his friends were inside the giant vehicle. After a few moments, Jimmy starts to subtlety beep. "Tell me Jimmy, what did you see with your special eyes?" Eaglebones questioned as Crash curiously looked at his robotic friend.

Jimmy's eyebrows furrowed as his eyes reverted back to their crystal blue color. "That's odd." Both Crash and Eaglebones looked at Jimmy, unsure of what he was about to say.

"Well?" Crash asked, slightly afraid of what Jimmy would say.

"Well it appears that The Commander's in his bunk and in NREM stage 2 sleep." Jimmy informed.

"What?" Eaglebones blurted out loud.

Crash growled, "I don't know what that means, but I heard the words bunk and sleep, and that's so not fair!"

Eaglebones and Jimmy got wide eyed again. Not only was Crash's strength unpredictable, but so was his super power. Crash has the ability to grow to sizes of up to a hundred feet tall. However, he has a hard time controlling it, just like his strength, but the other Aquabats have notice a pattern with Crash. Whenever he gets too angry, sad, or just really emotional in general, he tends to grow big.

Eaglebones was about to say some soothing words to his already naturally tall bandmate, in the hopes that he would not increase his already tall stature to unbelievable heights, but luckily for Eaglebones, Crash was just annoyed. It was hard to tell because Crash tends to exaggerate in his expressions, but it seemed as though everybody outside of the battletram would be safe. "Don't worry guys; I'll go get The Commander." Crash roughly opened the side door of the battletram before disappearing inside it.

Both Jimmy and Eaglebones stayed as they were for about a minute until they heard a loud ruckus, followed by The Commander's familiar voice scream, "What the wha?"

The two Aquabats outside turned to face each other. "Well," the two ducked for a moment when they heard more items break and The Commander scream again, but this time in a high pitched squeal. However, the two returned to standing when they realized the noise was inside the battletram. "Well," Eaglebones started again, "that takes care of that."

"Yes, but we still need-" Jimmy was interrupted by the Aquabats' leader, The M.C. Bat Commander, bursting out of the side door of the battletram and screaming. He was followed shortly afterward by Crash, who was screaming as well, but more like a villain in a scary movie compared to The Commander's high pitched noises.

Crash and The Commander did a full circle around Jimmy and Eaglebones before The Commander finally stopped. He turned around with his hands up in front of him. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry Crash, I'm awake."

Crash smiled mischievously and laughed. "Ha Ha! Alright Jimmy, we're all set."

The Commander merely folded his arms. "Yeah, yeah."

"Well, not exactly. We're still missing Ricky." Jimmy did not look pleased to inform his bandmates about this.

"What?" The Commander was in disbelief.

"Nothing bad happened to him, right?" Crash questioned, worried about the young Aquabat.

"I don't know, but we're going to have to go out looking for him!" The Commander stated fearlessly. "Aquabats, huddle!" After The Commander called out the action, the band quickly formed a closed in circle. "Alright, Jimmy, you get on your jet pack and search the skies for Ricky."

"But Commander, the jet pack's been broken ever since we fought that giant Tortilla monster." Jimmy informed, confusing The Commander.

"What? Haven't we gotten that fixed yet? That battle was ages ago."

Jimmy merely shook his head, "The replacement parts are too expensive."

"Blast it!" Their leader sighed. "Then just scan around on foot, I guess."

"Commander, I could use The Dude!" Eaglebones excitedly suggested.

"Who?" He questioned.

"My invisible bird." Eaglebones smiled.

The Commander gave the guitarist an odd look. The Dude was an actual bird from the spirit world, the only problem was that Eaglebones was the only one who could see her and ask her for help. And yes, The Dude is a she. "Uh yeah. Sure Eaglebones, do that." The Commander rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I'll go to our sound check and see if we can gather more time. I'm sure that the staff will be okay with it, seeing as how we're special requested guest." The Commander smirked for a moment before looking at Crash. "Crash, I don't want to pressure you or anything, but if you can, grow a littler larger to see if he wondered out of town."

"I'll try." Crash stated a little nervous.

"Cool, what can I do Commander?" A high sounding, enthusiastic voice was heard inside the huddle.

"Ah Ricky, you have the most important job. I-Huh?" The Commander instantly stopped talking and the huddle broke.

All of The Aquabats gaped at their short, yet compact drummer, Ricky Fitness. He just smiled back at them widely, exposing all of his braces that were so clean, they sparkled. "What's up guys?" He said cheerfully, holding a white, foam cup and sucking up a drink inside it with a black straw. "This is so good." Ricky began to digress. "Did you guys know they have a smoothie maker out there at one of the tents? All organic fruit and they even manage to sneak in my favorite veggies in the smoothie and they're fresh too! It's so awesome! You really need to get yourselves some. It's free for the performing bands." Ricky smiled as he took another sip.

"So you've just been drinking smoothies all morning?" The Commander questioned.

Ricky nodded at first, straw in his mouth, when he suddenly stopped drinking. "Well that and I was doing my morning speed jog. I ran around the whole town three and a half times."

"What happened to the other half?" Crash asked curiously.

"I got lost on one of my laps." Ricky answered.

"Because you ran into danger?" Eaglebones inquired.

Ricky sheepishly smiled and with his free hand he rubbed the back of his neck. "No, just got distracted."

"Hm, well you should have left a note." The Commander told him. "I don't get it Ricky, you're usually so good with that."

Ricky was perplexed, "But I did leave a note." The other Aquabats seemed just as confused as Ricky was. "Yeah, it said 'Going to work out early, I made you all some spinach egg whites with lots of protein.'" Ricky quoted.

"What? I wished I would have known you made breakfast earlier." Crash grumbled.

"Odd, it's as if somebody wanted us to think you were missing." Eaglebones thought out loud.

Ricky gasped before loudly sipping his smoothie.

Eaglebones cupped his own chin again as he pondered. "I have a strange feeling about today."

While Jimmy did not want interrupt once again, the band was falling way behind schedule. "Ricky, while I am glad you are safe, you do know that our sound check time is at 9:25am, right." Jimmy stated.

Ricky scoffed, "Yeah, so?" The change of subject made him forget all about Eaglebones' strange feelings.

"Well, now we only have two minutes and fifty-eight seconds to load all of our equipment on stage. Not to mention hooking it all up." Jimmy told him.

"That's less than five minutes!" Crash gasped before quickly opening the storage section of the battletram to see it full of instruments in their cases, numerous pieces of sound equipment, and lots and lots of wires. "Man, there's so much stuff in there! We don't even know where the stage is."

"I do." Ricky shrugged.

Suddenly, The Commander grinned widely, exposing his missing tooth. "Ricky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yes Commander! I'll use my super speed to carry all the instruments to the stage and set everything up. That way we'll be able to sound check and get some rehearsal in too!" Ricky stated happily.

"Oh, I was gonna ask if you could get me a blueberry-pomegranate smoothie, but that works too." The Commander spoke mightily.

"I'm on it!" Ricky cheered eagerly, but before he could rush over to the instruments, Eaglebones blocked his way on purpose. "Hey?" Ricky did not like that his mission was being delayed.

"Sorry Ricky, but nobody touches this guitar but me." Eaglebones was very protective of his laser shooting weaponized guitar. He pulled it out of the outer storage unit of the battletram and kept it close to his side.

"I wasn't gonna take it out of its case or anything Eaglebones. You know that." Ricky told him. "I don't even really know how to play guitar."

"Still, I can never be too sure." Eaglebones said as he held the cased guitar close to him, stroking the top of it. Ricky rolled his eyes.

"Sixty seconds." Jimmy warned.

"Ricky?" The Commander questioned.

"I've got this!" He cheered and before The Aquabats knew it Ricky was moving so fast that they could barely see him anymore. One by one, something was taken out of the storage unit by a blue blur.

The Commander smiled proudly. "Commander, where is he going?" Crash questioned. "He never told us which stage we're supposed to play on."

"I don't know guys, but I miss him already." The Commander chuckled.

"No you don't, I'm right here." Ricky appeared out of nowhere, shocking the heroes when they realized the blue blur stopped and Ricky was just standing in front of them, sipping his smoothie. "Come on, we've got to hit the stage."

"Oh, right then. Aquabats, let's go!" The M.C. Bat Commander cried and the group walked out of the parking lot and into the actual festival.


End file.
